Lula rallies G20 countries against world hunger ahead of meeting
By AFP
July 23, 2024
Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday will launch a new initiative against world hunger ahead of an upcoming G20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro - Copyright AFP EVARISTO SA
Ali BEKHTAOUI et Lucia LACURCIA
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday will launch a new initiative against world hunger ahead of an upcoming G20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro.
Finance ministers for grouping’s member states will convene Thursday and Friday in the Brazilian metropolis, one of the final gatherings before the G20 summit takes place on November 18-19 in the same city.
The initiative, dubbed the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty, will seek to secure common financial resources to combat world hunger and replicate successful programs that have worked locally.
“The fight against inequality, the fight against hunger, the fight against poverty are all fights that cannot be done by one country,” Lula told reporters Monday.
“It has to be done by all the countries that are willing to take on this historic responsibility.”
The initiative is one of Lula’s major priorities ahead of the G20 summit.
A recent report published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations outlining the state of world hunger will be presented at the meeting to illustrate the scale of the endeavor.
– Billionaire taxation –
Aside from the world hunger initiative, the agenda for this week’s meeting of G20 finance ministers will involve discussions of how to achieve another objective set by Brazil: figuring out ways to tax the ultra-wealthy.
The initiative, first discussed during a meeting in Sao Paulo in February, involves determining methodologies to tax billionaires and other high-income earners based on the work of French economist Gabriel Zucman.
However, talks have been highly contentious, and any forward progress is far from guaranteed.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen opposed international negotiations of the subject during a G7 finance meeting held in May in Italy.
“We think that probably the most effective and impactful tax solutions in this space will almost certainly vary fairly widely across jurisdictions,” a senior US Treasury official said.
The meeting will also discuss taxation of multinational corporations nearly three years after an agreement was signed to create a plan on the initiative.
Founded in 1999, the Group of 20 assembles 19 of the world’s largest economic powers, as well as the European Union and the African Union.
The organization was originally focussed on global economic issues but has increasingly taken on other pressing challenges of the moment.
By AFP
July 23, 2024
Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday will launch a new initiative against world hunger ahead of an upcoming G20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro - Copyright AFP EVARISTO SA
Ali BEKHTAOUI et Lucia LACURCIA
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday will launch a new initiative against world hunger ahead of an upcoming G20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro.
Finance ministers for grouping’s member states will convene Thursday and Friday in the Brazilian metropolis, one of the final gatherings before the G20 summit takes place on November 18-19 in the same city.
The initiative, dubbed the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty, will seek to secure common financial resources to combat world hunger and replicate successful programs that have worked locally.
“The fight against inequality, the fight against hunger, the fight against poverty are all fights that cannot be done by one country,” Lula told reporters Monday.
“It has to be done by all the countries that are willing to take on this historic responsibility.”
The initiative is one of Lula’s major priorities ahead of the G20 summit.
A recent report published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations outlining the state of world hunger will be presented at the meeting to illustrate the scale of the endeavor.
– Billionaire taxation –
Aside from the world hunger initiative, the agenda for this week’s meeting of G20 finance ministers will involve discussions of how to achieve another objective set by Brazil: figuring out ways to tax the ultra-wealthy.
The initiative, first discussed during a meeting in Sao Paulo in February, involves determining methodologies to tax billionaires and other high-income earners based on the work of French economist Gabriel Zucman.
However, talks have been highly contentious, and any forward progress is far from guaranteed.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen opposed international negotiations of the subject during a G7 finance meeting held in May in Italy.
“We think that probably the most effective and impactful tax solutions in this space will almost certainly vary fairly widely across jurisdictions,” a senior US Treasury official said.
The meeting will also discuss taxation of multinational corporations nearly three years after an agreement was signed to create a plan on the initiative.
Founded in 1999, the Group of 20 assembles 19 of the world’s largest economic powers, as well as the European Union and the African Union.
The organization was originally focussed on global economic issues but has increasingly taken on other pressing challenges of the moment.
By AFP
July 22, 2024
Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's decision to restore relations with Maduro's socialist government -- accused of human rights violations and trampling on democracy -- has drawn criticism from opponents - Copyright AFP EVARISTO SA
Thomas MORFIN
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Monday he had been “scared” by Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro’s warning of a “bloodbath” if he loses elections on Sunday.
“I was scared by Maduro’s statements that if he loses the election there will be a bloodbath,” Lula told international news agencies in Brasilia, as the Venezuelan leader prepares to seek a third six-year term amid accusations of foul play and opposition persecution.
“Maduro has to learn: if you win, you stay (in power). If you lose, you go. And you prepare to contest another election,” said the leftist icon, back in office since last year after serving two previous terms until 2010.
“I hope that is what happens, for the sake of Venezuela and for the sake of South America,” he added.
On Saturday, Maduro had warned the vote’s outcome would decide the future of the economically devastated country: “whether it becomes a peaceful Venezuela or a convulsed, violent and conflict-ridden Venezuela. Peace or war.”
And days earlier, he said Venezuela risks a “bloodbath” if he loses.
“Venezuela’s fate in the 21st century depends on our victory on July 28. If they do not want Venezuela to become a bloodbath, a fratricidal civil war produced by the fascists, let us guarantee the greatest success, the greatest electoral victory of our people,” he said at a campaign event in Caracas.
Institutions loyal to 61-year-old Maduro — in office since 2013 — have barred wildly popular opposition leader Maria Corina Machado from the race on what she and others dismiss as trumped-up corruption charges.
Others, too, were disqualified or have pulled out, and the opposition Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) picked 74-year-old Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, a little-known ex-diplomat, as a last-minute figurehead candidate.
Gonzalez Urrutia is far ahead in polls, but observers fear Maduro will never allow him to win.
– ‘Harassment, persecution and repression’ –
Lula had cultivated close ties with Maduro’s predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chavez.
But relations between the neighbors were severed under Lula’s far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.
Lula’s decision to restore relations with Maduro’s socialist government — accused of human rights violations and trampling on democracy — has drawn criticism from opponents.
Lula said Monday he had spoken to Maduro twice, and “he knows that the only way for Venezuela to return to normality is for there to be an electoral process respected by all.”
Last month, Lula criticized obstacles placed in the way of the opposition by Venezuela’s electoral authority, loyal to the regime, and called for more international vote observers after Caracas withdraw an invitation to monitors from the European Union.
He also called for the lifting of international sanctions against the Caribbean nation.
Lula said Monday his government would send two members of Brazil’s electoral court and his own foreign affairs advisor Celso Amorim to observe Sunday’s balloting.
Last week, Argentina, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Paraguay and Uruguay urged Caracas to cease the “harassment, persecution and repression” of opponents and “the release of all political prisoners.”
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